As expected, the Justice Department released its report on endemic racism in the Ferguson Police Department, determining that blacks were treated unfairly in "nearly every aspect of Ferguson's law enforcement system." The DOJ's findings were virtually a foregone conclusion. Attorney General Eric Holder and his merry band set out to find racism among white cops and, lo and behold, their witch hunt was successful. But, if some of the findings are indeed true, it's hard to say there isn't a real problem in Ferguson. For purely partisan reasons, Holder and his boss, Barack nObama, launched a national campaign to throw municipal, county and state law enforcement officers under the bus -- the same cops they frequently use as photo-op props. Holder said the DOJ's findings explain why a black man's death at the hands of a white police officer "set off the city of Ferguson like a powder keg." Perhaps that's partly true, especially if the perception among the populace is that the police are out to get them, but it's also far more complicated than Holder lets on. And can we really believe anything he says? -The Patriot Post
Hilly Clinton said she wants “the public to see [her] email” in a tweet so Clintonian in its tortured language that it would have been perfect for a #throwbackthursday. The presumptive Democratic nominee most certainly does not want the public to see her “email,” which is why she built and maintained a secret server that risked massive security breaches but was designed to allow the eradication of any troublesome messages. That the server may have been overseen by a longtime aide with ties to the Clintons’ pardon scandal only makes the nostalgia more poignant. Pop in a Spin Doctors’ CD and let the 90s vibe flow, America. The former secretary of state is actually referring to emails she has already given the agency. Clinton’s campaign team would obviously have no qualms about releasing what has been already sterilized. But blaming the scandal on a bureaucratic snag beyond her control is an effort to inculpate the nObama administration. Team nObama, however, is fighting back. -Fox News
“The bigger concern is was she transacting official government business that’s on a server that’s not secure? Because we know these servers are targets for foreign intelligence. We know the Chinese, the Russians, the North Koreans, the Cubans and others are constantly trying to hack into computers and especially that of government officials and if she was transacting sensitive State Department business on an insecure server, that alone is reason to be alarmed.” –Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., on “The Kelly File” -Fox News
[A new Quinnipiac Poll, taken before the controversy broke over Hilly Clinton’s use of a private email account as secretary of state, showed the Democratic frontrunner maintaining a 42 point lead over her closest competitor. Without Clinton in the race, Democratic voters polled give Vice President loose lips Joe Biden the lead at 35 percent, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 25 percent and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, 7 percent.]
“There’s always another shoe to drop with Hilly… ‘I’ll tell you this: [loose lips Joe Biden] ain’t got no e-mail problems. He ain’t got no foundation problems. What you see with loose lips Joe is what you get. There’s nothing hidden there.’” -- Dick Harpootlian, a former Democratic Party chairman in South Carolina in an interview with WaPo. -Fox News
U.S. Set to Be the New Swing Producer
(insideronline.org) - From the early days of the Republic, a core component of our constitutional character has been the idea that our government is a government of laws and not of men...The current Administration, however, has engaged in a sustained assault on the rule of law. In the latest instance, notwithstanding nObamacare’s unmistakably clear text, which limits subsidies to plans purchased through state-established exchanges, and notwithstanding that this limitation was absolutely fundamental to accomplishing Congress’s purpose of incentivizing states to establish exchanges, the President decided that he would also offer subsidies for plans purchased through federally established exchanges. President nObama maintains the law must be rewritten to avoid the consequences the law itself imposes. The American people deserve a health care law that works, and a President who follows the law.
URL: thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/pdf/HL1261.pdf
(meforum.org) - Following the death of Saudi King Abdullah at the end of January, and the succession of his half-brother, now King Salman, 79, many observers of the desert monarchy have speculated on its future.
Almost immediately, King Salman has commenced an effort to clear the air regarding Islamist ideology and its association with terrorism. That's rather unlike President nObama. While he and some other Western leaders claim they are combating radical Islam, they habitually refuse to call it by its correct name. Instead, they employ euphemisms.
American Counter-'Extremism'
On February 18, nObama summoned a three-day conclave titled "Countering Violent Extremism." Such terminology suggests that the atrocities of the Islamic State or ISIS, al Qaeda, the Taliban and other South Asian jihadists, and Iranian operatives in various countries, are mere aspects of a general planetary wave of ethnic and political turmoil.
They are not. Radical Islamist terrorism reflects a feature of Islam that has erupted and then subsided repeatedly over the centuries of Muslim history. It has its own specific content and dynamics. But the merest recognition of this reality was absent from a fact sheet on the "White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism" issued by the presidential press office. In nearly 1,700 words of bureaucratic boilerplate, references to "Muslims," "Islam," "Wahhabism," "Taliban," or "Iran," did not appear even once.Instead, the fact sheet was replete with the suffocating esoterism of the Beltway vocabulary, referring to "drivers and indicators of radicalization," "stakeholders and practitioners," and "extremist messaging and narratives." Nothing that transpired at the "summit" indicated any better reasoning in the current administration. Indeed, according to a February 13 report entitled, grotesquely, "nObama Summit Targets American Extremism," on Voice of America News, the meeting was concentrated as much on social pathologies like urban gangs in our country as on Islamist fanaticism.
"Countering Violent Extremism" was provided with its own acronym – "CVE" – which will probably be forgotten quickly, just as the approach itself is likely to fail. Before September 11, 2001, Islamist terror was treated as a criminal problem. Now it is viewed by Western elites as a sociological conundrum, involving, as stated by nObama in his address to the United Nations in September 2014, "underlying grievances and conflicts that feed extremism."
While obstacles to Muslim integration in some Western countries, and youthful alienation, feed radical recruitment, little progress has been made, in 13 years since 9/11, to broaden Western comprehension of the more basic role of Islamist ideology. In this context, the responsibility of Iran for encouragement of the hideous bloodbath by the Syrian regime should not be overlooked.
Saudi Counter-Terrorism
Saudi King Salman, by contrast, has put forward a very different attitude in remarks to a conference of Islamic scholars in Mecca in February, under the rubric of "Islam and Counter Terrorism." As reported by the Jidda-based Saudi Gazette, "the King said the entire world is threatened by the 'Islamized terrorism' which kills, destroys and commits all kinds of vices under the name of Islam." In addition, "he said the detestable crimes of terrorists were the root cause of the hostile campaigns against Islam and Muslims," according to the paper. King Salman added that many people fear Islam and "are skeptical of us and our religion."
Aside from Saudi Arabia, the Mecca conference drew participants from Lebanon, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, India, France, Thailand, and other countries. The meeting was held by the Muslim World League (MWL), created in 1962 as a trans-national coalition of Wahhabi and other fundamentalist entities. MWL came under widespread suspicion in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. MWL currently has offices in 34 Muslim and non-Muslim lands, and operates 21 expansive mosques or "Islamic cultural centers" on six continents.But MWL has not returned to the area of Washington, DC, where its office in Herndon, Virginia, was raided by U.S. authorities in 2002. Its past establishment of grandiose mosques and distribution of cash across the globe were, it seems, curtailed under King Abdullah, whose reign began in 2005. MWL has not, however, increased the sophistication of its image. Its website is poorly edited and confuses, currently, South Korea, where MWL operates a mosque and office, with North Korea.
Nevertheless, the anti-terror strategy adopted by King Salman since he assumed the throne appears predicated on an impressive clarity and frankness. The February Mecca conference declared in its English-language program,
In its final communiqué, the conference condemned "the ideological deviation ... based on irrational concepts that govern the Muslims' relationship with others. These include jihad." The summary document stated that terrorism "has tarnished the image of Islam throughout the world," with "an unfounded wave of accusing people of apostasy, depravity and unacceptable theological] innovation… atrocities have been committed based on erroneous and unfounded interpretations… the stigma of terrorism is attached to Muslims.These juveniles and fool dreamers… with their reckless actions and careless audacity to spill innocent people's blood… have horrified honest people and terrorized Muslims and others… they shout 'there is no god but Allah,' and 'Allah is great.' To these zealots, these are empty slogans without any substance… this distorted campaign has committed horrible sins under the cover of Islam... The time has come for scholars, preachers and people of conscience to warn people against this scourge, and disavow it.
The conference observed that,
sectarian strife, and mounting animosity among Muslims, have drawn them into conflicts, and driven them into warring factions. Their communities and their countries are on the verge of crumbling into small factional and ethnic feuding entities; distracted away from working for the best interests of their nation and civilization by these conflicts. Muslim minorities have been denuded of their potential. A wedge of enmity has been driven between them and their fellow citizens and communities. The relationship soured among compatriots of one single country, and has spoiled any chance of rapprochement... Thus, Muslims faced isolation and marginalization in their own homelands.
The idiom of the Mecca conference represents a difference from past rhetoric by Muslim leaders aimed only at dissociating radical Islam from the religion as a whole, or blaming the West for the problems within the faith. Much more is required to make a new commitment to self-examination among Muslims real. But as his predecessor, King Abdullah, adopted small but meaningful internal reforms, King Salman has begun a significant, more ambitious process, and we may hope he has the courage and stamina to carry it through.
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